CVE-2021-29504

Published Jun 7, 2021

Last updated 3 years ago

Overview

Description: WP-CLI is the command-line interface for WordPress. An improper error handling in HTTPS requests management in WP-CLI version 0.12.0 and later allows remote attackers able to intercept the communication to remotely disable the certificate verification on WP-CLI side, gaining full control over the communication content, including the ability to impersonate update servers and push malicious updates towards WordPress instances controlled by the vulnerable WP-CLI agent, or push malicious updates toward WP-CLI itself. The vulnerability stems from the fact that the default behavior of `WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()` when encountering a TLS handshake error is to disable certificate validation and retry the same request. The default behavior has been changed with version 2.5.0 of WP-CLI and the `wp-cli/wp-cli` framework (via https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523) so that the `WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()` method accepts an `$insecure` option that is `false` by default and consequently that a TLS handshake failure is a hard error by default. This new default is a breaking change and ripples through to all consumers of `WP_CLI\Utils\http_request()`, including those in separate WP-CLI bundled or third-party packages. https://github.com/wp-cli/wp-cli/pull/5523 has also added an `--insecure` flag to the `cli update` command to counter this breaking change. There is no direct workaround for the default insecure behavior of `wp-cli/wp-cli` versions before 2.5.0. The workaround for dealing with the breaking change in the commands directly affected by the new secure default behavior is to add the `--insecure` flag to manually opt-in to the previous insecure behavior.
Source: security-advisories@github.com
NVD status: Analyzed

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type: Primary
Base score: 7.4
Impact score: 5.2
Exploitability score: 2.2
Vector string: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Severity: HIGH

CVSS 2.0

Type: Primary
Base score: 7.5
Impact score: 6.4
Exploitability score: 10
Vector string: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Weaknesses

security-advisories@github.com: CWE-295

Hype score: Not currently trending

Configurations

[
  {
    "nodes": [
      {
        "negate": false,
        "cpeMatch": [
          {
            "criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:wp-cli:wp-cli:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
            "vulnerable": true,
            "matchCriteriaId": "7905C5F9-7215-431B-87D0-B302B66363D9",
            "versionEndExcluding": "2.5.0",
            "versionStartIncluding": "0.12.0"
          }
        ],
        "operator": "OR"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Overview

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

CVSS 2.0

Weaknesses

Social media

Configurations

References